If Haymon doesn't bail out Top Rank... is Arum finished?

[IMDAZED]

That raises question of what exactly Haymon is trying to accomplish, and whether Haymon his goals have changed, or had to change, since the PBC started.

How does it raise that question? I disagree.

[Mitchell Kane]

Geez you are dense. There is no deal between Corona and ESPN now.

PBC has exclusives on Corona. That means if ESPN wants to do boxing without PBC, they cannot get Corona back.

Simple enough?

ESPN couldn't find another sponsor?

[Scipio2009]

Depends on how some fights go.

If Ramirez beats Britsch and if the Chudinov fight gets made and he wins that then he may only months away, not two years away.

If Donaire-Magdaleno gets made that's an HBO-caliber fight, the winner isn't two years away from other big fights.

If Valdez beats Rueda and Lonachwnko drops the belt, he's a titleholder.

Jose Ramirez may not be that far away.

The guys who are two years away are most like the Saul Rodriguez, Julian Rodriguez, Murata, et al.

fair, I guess. Still, in most of those examples, there's nothing to follow up those initial fights.

Things are lined up for Top Rank to maybe hold a decent number of WBO belts, but who do any of those guys fight?

[Scipio2009]

Then PBC fails. They need a critical mass of talent & what they got isn't it by a longshot. Although fwiw I don't think these guys necessarily need to be Haymon advised fighters they can just be guys under the Haymon promoters banner officially & regular fighters in the bigger PBC fold. So by adding guys to his advised roster + working with more promoters the full roster will expand out to a 4 digit or at least a near 4 digit number.

that ... might actually work. 200+ fighters directly with Haymon, Floyd bringing his non-Haymon fighters to the pot, DiBella bring his fighters, GYM bringing their fighters, Warriors Boxing having their fighters, Eddie Hearn bringing his fighters (with the Sauerlands also working with Eddie Hearn, opening up their fighters), and the host of prospects/journeymen fighters in the gyms affiliated with PBC fighters (not to mention the amateurs turning pro every year), and you're looking at a massive pool of available fighters.

[Scipio2009]

I wasn't suggesting Bob was gonna be drug along cuz he's an interesting guy, just that no one with PBC is interesting & they could use some personality besides Lou DiBella & now Floyd. Bob would get drug along cuz he's a great finder of talent & he has fighters who are heavily talked about & respected like Crawford, Loma, Bradley along with a nice lil group of prospects that would be greatly helped by free network tv time. And Haymon could use all the talent he can get fighting on PBC.



Who's to say Haymon doesn't respect Arum or Arum doesn't respect Haymon ultimately or there is even a new found respect after they've both gotten peeks at how the other operates & does business? I just don't see how two guys being rational & they both seem really rational even if Arum's more gruff about his rationality & sometimes dramatic with it & Haymon's rationalness is quiet & often viewed as irrationalness by fans can't work together when there is upside for both sides like there would be here. If thats not possible the foreseeable future is more f#cked up than I think.

Whatever pluses that might come with Arum are outweighed by the negatives; if the goal is to capitalize on finding talent, I'd imagine that Carl Morretti would have more to do with the actual nitty gritty than Bob Arum would.

Haymon's image of Bob Arum, in my opinion, was crystallized in the way that he handled working with Arum for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, namely in how (outside of giving Pacquiao the Phillipines TV rights to the fight) Bob Arum was basically removed from every decision making question for the card, outside of what fight he wanted to put in his slots on the show.

Arum wasn't even allowed to offer up a suggestion on the lights.

Not sure how else to describe it, but Haymon moves different; Haymon and DiBella work because, though Lou has a persona and his own issues about him, Lou gets the work done, knows how to move things in his markets, and has yet to really burn any bridges with anyone.

[Scipio2009]

The current relationship was paid for by the PBC/Waddell & Reed.

That doesn't mean the relationship will remain the same once the "time buy" ends.

If you had $10b to spend, do you honestly believe that ESPN ("The Worldwide leader in Sports") would sell you, Mitchell Kane, time on their main channel at any price?

The simple answer is no. ESPN isn't going to risk damaging the prestige of the brand that they've built to air content from some random person who they had no confidence in.

Bob Arum has been in the boxing business for 40 years and, outside of Unimas, I doubt that there is a single TV channel, outside of HBO, that would even entertain Arum's call, even if he had $1b in his pocket.

[Mitchell Kane]

fair, I guess. Still, in most of those examples, there's nothing to follow up those initial fights.

Things are lined up for Top Rank to maybe hold a decent number of WBO belts, but who do any of those guys fight?

Why does there have to be something immediately following those initial fights?

Most of those fighters are young: Jose Ramirez is 23, Jesse Magdaleno is 24, Gilberto Ramirez is 24, Oscar Valdez is 25.

They're all active and fight regularly...they'll probably all have at least 3 fights this year.

If Top Rank can get them regular fights on HBO/PPV, then some of them will likely grow into gate/tv attractions.

[Mitchell Kane]

The simple answer is no. ESPN isn't going to risk damaging the prestige of the brand that they've built to air content from some random person who they had no confidence in.

Have you seen some of what ESPN televises these days, especially during the summer months when there's a dead period with the off-seasons in the NFL and NBA?

ESPN is losing television rights battles left and right to other networks, and Haymon offered them a deal that was too good to refuse.

[Mitchell Kane]

Whatever pluses that might come with Arum are outweighed by the negatives; if the goal is to capitalize on finding talent, I'd imagine that Carl Morretti would have more to do with the actual nitty gritty than Bob Arum would.

Haymon's image of Bob Arum, in my opinion, was crystallized in the way that he handled working with Arum for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, namely in how (outside of giving Pacquiao the Phillipines TV rights to the fight) Bob Arum was basically removed from every decision making question for the card, outside of what fight he wanted to put in his slots on the show.

Arum wasn't even allowed to offer up a suggestion on the lights.

Not sure how else to describe it, but Haymon moves different; Haymon and DiBella work because, though Lou has a persona and his own issues about him, Lou gets the work done, knows how to move things in his markets, and has yet to really burn any bridges with anyone.

Speaking of Dibella, it'll be interesting to see what happens to him if that million dollar insurance price tag sticks past September.

[Scipio2009]

Why does there have to be something immediately following those initial fights?

Most of those fighters are young: Jose Ramirez is 23, Jesse Magdaleno is 24, Gilberto Ramirez is 24, Oscar Valdez is 25.

They're all active and fight regularly...they'll probably all have at least 3 fights this year.

If Top Rank can get them regular fights on HBO/PPV, then some of them will likely grow into gate/tv attractions.

Start/stopping a star hardly ever works out, from what I've seen. Floyd's a special example, but once he was ready for the start of his star push, he fought Arturo Gatti and then continued on with big marketable fights until his star launched (Sharmba Mitchell to debut at 147, but then Judah/Baldomir/Oscar/Hatton and then he was set as a star).

Ramirez is 24, yet he could possibly be stuck on the same bum path that Golovkin is currently on. Compare that to a guy like James Degale who, though already 30, has the Badou Jack unification fight lined up next, in addition to Callum Smith, the Murray/Groves winner, and possibly a fight with Felix Sturm in UK/Europe, in addition to the Haymon-backed fighters at 168 (the Dirrell brothers, Peter Quillin moving up, etc) in the US.

It's going to be on him to win the fights, but Haymon/Hearn have James Degale lined up with a plan that should launch him into stardom in the next 16-18 months.

What's the plan for Gilberto Ramirez? Squashing cans will get him to ~1.2m viewers on HBO, but it won't do anything to get the paying audience to back him.